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Paladin talents
Starting at level 10, a Paladin can begin spending talent points to gain new abilities and spells, strengthen existing abilities, and specialize how he/she functions. See the entry on Talents for more information about the Talent system. Paladin Talents have undergone significant changes through patch 1.9 to 2.3. Patch 2.3 actually brought the long overdue Retribution Tree revamp. Paladin talent trees Paladins train in three schools: Holy, Protection, and Retribution. Which talent trees the Paladin spends points in determines the Paladin's role in parties and raids. Holy Paladins will mainly be expected to be main healers. Protection Paladins are going to tank. Retribution Paladins will be DPS. Currently, patch 2.3 has modified key talents in the Protection and Retribution trees such as Weapon Expertise (Protection) being renamed Combat Expertise and will also increase Stamina by up to 10% when maxed out. Pursuit of Justice was changed to a three-rank talent that increases movement speed by up to 15% and reduces the chances that the Paladin will be hit by spells by up to 3%. Holy The Holy tree contains talents focused on healing and caster-related buffs. Common Holy builds will invest at least 20 points into the tree. A typical 20 talent point investment should include Divine Intellect(5/5), Spiritual Focus(5/5), Healing Light(3/3), Imp Lay on Hands(2/2) and Illumination(5/5) Dedicated raiding paladin healers will want to invest 41 points or more into the holy tree. Pick up Divine Favor along with Sanctified Light and Holy Power as synergy talents that will benefit Illumination to a much greater extent. Other useful talents as a healer include Light's Grace, Holy Guidance and Divine Illumination and Improved Blessing of Wisdom. At this point, the investment of 1 talent point in Holy Shock is simply a luxury and not really needed for a quality Holy talent build. For most of the paladin tanks, zero point should be spent in Holy tree. Nevertheless, for those who are not going to maintank in raid but need to heal frequently, a semi-hybrid healing/tanking build can be used by putting around 15-20 points into the Holy tree healing related talents and the rest into Protection tree. Rarely, some tankadins may also max Improved Seal of Righteousness to squeeze out some extra bit of threat, usually at the expense of other mitigation talents. This is generally not recommended unless you are exceptionally well-geared and know what you are doing. Retribution paladins typically max Divine Strength and leave everything else empty. Some may consider Divine Intellect as well but there are usually better places to spend the points. Protection The Protection tree contains talents focused on defense, damage mitigation, damage return and one-handed weapons. A typical healing raiding paladin who selects talents in protection will invest 11 talent points in the protection tree, selecting Imp Devotion Aura(5/5, the new addition giving your party much needed armor to reduce damage from melee attacks and allowing you to have to heal a bit less), Guardian's Favor (2/2), Toughness (3/5 to 5/5) and finally Blessing of Kings(1/1) since an extra 10% to everyone's stats takes the edge off of new encounters and speeds up raid progression. A paladin tank would normally invest at least 41 talent points in the protection tree to get Avenger's Shield, although it is not strictly necessary. It has awesome chain-reacting power that can also slow enemies. It's also an incredible aggro builder. Since patch 2.3, there are more useful talents than the points we can spend, so we see a lot of tanking builds with some minor variation here and there. However, as long as it contains the following core talents, it should be viable: Redoubt, Toughness, Improved Righteous Fury, Shield Specialization, Anticipation, Blessing of Sanctuary, Sacred Duty, One-Handed Weapon Specialization, Holy Shield, Improved Holy Shield, Ardent Defender, Combat Expertise, Avenger's Shield, Benediction, Deflection. Other talents worth noting for paladin tanks include: Precision, which improves threat generation as well as reduces missing chance of Righteous Defense; Spell Warding, which provide some protection against spell damage; and Blessing of Kings. Reckoning is a very good skill when AOE leveling/farming. With more than four to five mobs keep hitting you, reckoning will be up most of the time. This is a very significant improvement in dps, health regen or mana regen when combined with Seal of Righteousness, Seal of Light or Seal of Wisdom respectively. Nevertheless, its usefulness in end-game instance tanking is not much, so most tankadins would put the points to some where else at level 70. For PvE retribution paladins, Precision and Blessing of Kings are probably the only two talents you would be interested here. 3% less likely to miss means your dps is at least increased by 3%. If Blessing of Kings is chosen, it is basically for the benefit of the raid because Blessing of Salvation and Might are better for retadins' dps. Concerning PvP, paladin's protection tree is not as designed as the warrior's against enemy spellcasters, since your damage output comes from blocking and being hit by melee damage, and your improved armor and defense will not lower spell damage at all. With Reckoning however, at close proximity to casters, higher damage output may be dealt. Improved Hammer of Justice is excellent if they're trying to cast, so not only do you interrupt them, but you can also get in heals more frequently. Also, with Sacred Duty, you can use Divine Shield while still pummeling spellcasters without slowing or stunning effecting you, and like before, more time for healing as well. Improved Concentration Aura is also useful, especially if you have caster groupmates. Stoicism provides some protection against stun and dispel. Retribution The Retribution tree contains talents focused on damage output, two-handed weapons, holy damage, and damage avoidance. Gone from being the underestimated Paladin spec to becoming a formidable holy melee fighter, the Retribution Paladin brings buffs and debuffs, offhealing, cleansing and excellent damage when properly geared. The Retribution tree has both raid and arena viability and can be of interest to any Paladin who would rather deal damage than take or heal it. However, many Retribution Paladins are still not wanted in 5-mans and arenas, as people do not see their benefits. For those interested in being a melee damage Paladin, 41 talent points should be invested in the Retribution tree. It is strongly advised that any serious Retribution spec for Crusader Strike, be it for PvP or PvE, as it is a large burst damage and party/raid utility increase, being able to refresh the Judgements of fellow Paladin on a target. (Judgement of Light, Wisdom Etc.) A certain build exists for Retribution Paladins, with slight alterations depending on which side of the game the Paladin intend to focus on, PvP or PvE. Most common Retribution builds have at least 41 points in the Retribution tree, and most Retribution Paladins decide to spec for Blessing of Kings bringing even more party and raid utility, not to mention being able to give more survivability to their fellow PvP'ers in Arena and Battlegrounds. However, people who spec into this build lose some benefits from the Retribution tree. :Tree 1: :Retribution talents :- Benediction 5/5 :- Improved Judgement 2/2 :- Improved Seal of the Crusader 3/3 :- Seal of Command 1/1 :- Conviction 5/5 :- Pursuit of Justice 2/3 :- Crusade 3/3 :- Two Handed Weapon Specialization 3/3 :- Sanctity Aura 1/1 :- Improved Sanctity Aura 2/2 :- Vengeance 5/5 :- Repentance 1/1 :- Sanctified Judgement 3/3 :- Sanctified Seals 3/3 :- Fanaticism 5/5 :- Crusader Strike 1/1 :Protection talents :- Improved Devotion Aura or Redoubt 5/5 (Depending if you're called on to off-tank often) :- Precision 3/3 :- Guardian's Favor 2/2 :- Blessing of Kings 1/1 :Holy talents :- Divine Strength 5/5 :In total: 5/11/45 This build is able of putting out a good amount of damage while still bringing excellent raid utilty. :Tree 2: :Retribution talents :- Improved Blessing of Might 5/5 :- Benediction 5/5 :- Improved Judgement 2/2 :- Improved Seal of the Crusader 3/3 :- Conviction 5/5 :- Seal of Command 1/1 :- Crusade 3/3 :- Two Handed Weapon Specialization 3/3 :- Sanctity Aura 1/1 :- Improved Sanctity Aura 2/2 :- Vengeance 5/5 :- Sanctified Judgement 3/3 :- Sanctified Seals 3/3 :- Repentance 1/1 :- Divine Purpose 3/3 :- Fanaticism 5/5 :- Crusader Strike 1/1 :Holy talents :- Divine Strength 5/5 :- Divine Intellect 2/5 :In total: 7/0/54 This tree allows some flexibility between PvE and PvP, as well as a slightly larger mana pool. However, the two points in Divine Intellect may be switched with two points in another talent (likely Pursuit of Justice) depending on your liking. Improved Blessing of Might is a plus, as it is nearly a 200 attack power bonus in comparison to Blessing of Might unimproved. As for PvP builds, there exist a few variations. A common PvP build tends to be 0/20/41, being specced for increased survivabilty (Divine Purpose) and for shorter cooldown on your primary stun (Improved Hammer of Justice) this build is very potent for high end arena play, as your stun when combined with the Gladiator PvP set bonus and the Improved Hammer of Justice talent has its cooldown lowered to 35 seconds, making it quite semi effective as Crowd Control. It is not recommended to spec into the Eye for an Eye talent. There are many issues involved with this talent, such as the Stamina increase with Burning Crusade made it less effective, and that it may break crowd control effects on enemies that have just casted a spell on you. Vindication is an excellent choice, however, as the 15% reduction of all stats can be very useful in many situations. Note, that most bosses are immune to Vindication, but it still serves a purpose when fighting trash mobs, solo'ing, and of course PvP'ing. Some PvP'ing Paladins choose to not use the max rank of their Seal of Command, due to the fact that may be too mana consuming compared to the damage dealt after the removal of spell damage from Retribution sets, as the Judgement still scales with your spell damage. Rank 1 still has the same proc rate as the max rank. However, you will notice a large decrease of damage done by your Judgement of Command, even without any spell damage. Using rank 1 also allows you to skip the Sanctified Judgements talent, and redistribute the points into Divine Purpose for more survivability against physical and ranged attacks. Paladin tanks usually max Benediction and Deflection here. Other retribution tree talents that maybe useful for tankadins include Improved Judgement, Improved Seal of the Crusader and Pursuit of Justice. While Retribution Aura is the most frequently used aura for tankadins, it is usually not worth the effort to get Improved Retribution Aura. See also * Paladin Talent Calculator at Official site * Paladin Talent Calculator at Wowhead * Paladin Talent Calculator at Thottbot.com * Paladin Talent Calculator at Panda Hideout * Paladin Talent Calculator at merciless-gilde.com * Paladin Talent Calculator at WorldofWar.se Category:Paladins Category:Paladin Talents Category:Talents